Hasbro recently received a favorable judgment from a Chinese court in a criminal case about counterfeit Transformers products.

“We take the protection of our intellectual property very seriously, and we will continue to investigate and pursue those who infringe on our rights,” said Tarrant Sibley, Hasbro’s Chief Legal Officer. “We are pleased with the ruling in this case, and will continue to vigorously enforce our intellectual property rights to combat the manufacturing and distribution of counterfeit products.”

What do you think of this decision? Review the entire press release here and then sound off on the 2005 boards!

Skullface made a video on my exact point. Now they could have won on anything. Seems it's clear it was Optimus prime but what product? They most compelling is the box showing name, logo for TF and Hasbro mark so in my opinion 3p is safe from hasbro. I think the clear issue is misleading the consumer so don't use the box log name. To boot 3 p is an original design although likeness to sunbow marvel. If they want to sue I think they are more in the right than Hasbro. G1 looks nothing like what 3p does which is why it's so successful lol.

This part in the case was interesting to me. Looks like it's common practice and US companies allow it because they want their product and they turn a blind eye but now that it's not filling their order, it's an issue.

"When the big factory can't digest the internal order, it will entrust a small factory to process it, and will not provide a power of attorney like a certificate. "

At the end of the day it's all about money, not protecting the rights of the creator, it's simply money. Hasbro and Takara could have made G1 for years to come but chose not to. I felt dissapointed as a child multiple times when they were no where to be found and my robot points came back sold out sorry can't full fill your order.

If I make a smartphone tomorrow that is identical to an iPhone 10 in every way but it doesn't use any apple branding at all, and just sticks to and even improves designs both aesthetic and functional over the iphone 10, is that theft?

…no, it's not theft by any metric, which requires the taking of property in a zero-sum fashion…

…it is patent infringement of any novel invention or design work which has been granted artificial monopoly protection, and if you're using any apple software then it is copyright infringement, but if you've clean-room reverse-engineered your own software with identical functionality then it's not copyright infringement…

…you could even use apple logos and titles on your own device created for your own personal use, and as long as you're not selling your homemade iphone it's not trademark infringement, but the moment you use apple branding on something offered directly for or in conjunction with commerce in a market sector where apple competes, it is trademark infringement…

…note that none of those three infringements of artificially-protected monopoly rights (patent, copyright, nor trademark) constitute theft; rather, they're a liability against protected markets with difficult-to-quantify damages, none of which actually took property away from apple, but all of which may have diminished the unrealised potential market value of apple's artificial monopoly rights…

…'intellectual property' is a vaguely-defined vernacular term used to conflate artificial monopoly protection with property rights in a long-running campaign to extend those legal protections against the natural public domain…

If I make a smartphone tomorrow that is identical to an iPhone 10 in every way but it doesn't use any apple branding at all, and just sticks to and even improves designs both aesthetic and functional over the iphone 10, is that theft?

What if 100 or 1000, or 1 million people do this. Is that also theft?

What if it isn't an iPhone but a pen, or table. Does the complexity of both function and aesthetics make a difference, and if so, where is the line?

Now to refocus, OS nitro zeus is obviously based on the official mould, but no one who buys it (ideally) is being told this is a Transformer TM product. If a million companies made a million different versions of the same mould but with variations in everything from aesthetics to functionality, who draws the line and where?

I would default to the real hard lines that can be drawn. If the product pretends to be the original in every way it can in order to deceive the buyer while also having a product that is functionally and aesthetically indistinguishable (not accounting for QC) from the original, That is IP theft. If it fails these requirements, then it isn't.

Maybe I'm wrong as I haven't spent a ton of time outside of ongoing life experience and circumstantial education to reach this conclusion, but it's the way I currently approach the arguement.

Does this hold true when HasTak is the one doing the IP theft? Usually the adamant anti-3rd Party crowd takes no issue in that case, though…

People see what they want to see, believe what they want to believe, and very rarely will someone take a stance, interpretation, code or philosophy that places them at a disadvantage.

To an artist, anyone copying their work without permission or compensation is an insufferable thief. It's their blood, sweat and tears in their work, and there's some value to that artist wanting to protect his or her talent and/or means of putting food on the table. In a society that places more stock in the individual over the group, this might be morally correct and the best way to operate.

However, the entire human condition is based on copying pre-existing ideas and works. Otherwise we'd still be hunting and gathering and dying of horrible diseases. The public actually has a vested interest in taking certain IP away from the IP holder because it arguably makes life better. As a whole, the public may value that divestment of the IP to the group, at which point the morally correct and best way to operate may very well be to rob the hell out of the IP holder.

There's no right or wrong answer. Arguing morality and ethics are like arguing the veracity of the rules of a board game. There's no rule in Monopoly that establishes the common "Free Parking" house rule. However, many people play that way and prefer to play that way. Unless codified by law, there's no enforcement of ethics or morality and that's largely what we do: we codify the base elements of what the consensus believes is correct or incorrect.

However, morality, ethics, personal codes of conduct, honor, or what have you are, at least to my mind, so varied and malleable to be almost worthless to anyone but those that have them. In other words, the value of whatever particular version of morals and ethical codes a person holds is unique to them and them alone. They exist solely to establish the individual and provide that individual satisfaction by helping them define themselves in society. More importantly, they don't mean anything to anyone else absent codification – i.e. law.

Coming back to the call of this thread, arguing the morality of "IP theft", to whatever given value we want to give to "IP" or "theft" has little to do with any legal cause of action arising from alleged IP infringement. Morality, Ethics, and IP Theft is a verbal game of Calvinball that never ends, never goes anywhere, because all the rules are made up and the points don't matter.

Sorry edge, you lose me every time you try to paint in gradients. Theft is theft. You don't have an original idea, use someone else's. 3P, KO, all cash in on a brand and reputation that got us all into these toys as kids. If it's not hasbro or takara making it, and you identify it as part of your "transformers" collection, it's theft of IP. The gradients you refer to (and morality) is simply justification for why you prefer one intellectual theft, yet condemn another. I applaud your Jean Valjean approach to the morality of theft, and it's a great philosophical discussion. But as a person who has spent 40 years creating and making art (IP), I don't really see gradients. You can explain your reasons for justifying theft, and I might even agree in your justifications, but in the end it's still theft – justified or not.

Does this hold true when HasTak is the one doing the IP theft? Usually the adamant anti-3rd Party crowd takes no issue in that case, though…

From the looks of the judgement, the counterfeit products were branded as Hasbro.

Everything had to do with use of Trademarked logos and Brand Names.

There is nothing there about the actual toy design. So, it looks like the good old days, of if you don't put Hasbro, Transformers or an Autobot or Decepticon logo on the box, nothing will be done (unless you piss of someone important in the party).

Still looks like only going after counterfeit. That's super easy to prove in court.That means straight KOs are technically subject to penalties. No surprise there.Don't see any reason why 3P would be subject to that. You could make the argument in court of course, but it'll be a much more difficult thing to prove.We see so very little of the real counterfeit market in the US, but they are everywhere. It's massive. The independent producers of 3P are a drop in the bucket in comparison and I wouldn't even bother.

The article was posted by Hasbro and more importantly leaves out which products were destroyed. Since they posted it and not the press, I think it was their way of detering. At least they have started the g1 reissues, hopefully we will get some other box sets like devastator.

As long as it doesn’t touch magic square (and friends) legends scale figure, I should be ok…

Chug has been over a while

MP good enough, I got the most important ones, maybe just Prime and Silverbolt if possible, but whatever

Legends…. I am just restarting out with MS and this is kinda where I wanted to grow, maybe even reduce some of my other she,vets for them… would be a shame, I only care about 3rd party g1 legends mostly now, especially to keep at work

As long as it doesn't touch Takara Tomy KOs I'll be ok.I'm looking forward to a MP-36+ KO. Hear that Infinite Transformation?

As long as it doesn’t touch magic square (and friends) legends scale figure, I should be ok…

Chug has been over a while

MP good enough, I got the most important ones, maybe just Prime and Silverbolt if possible, but whatever

Legends…. I am just restarting out with MS and this is kinda where I wanted to grow, maybe even reduce some of my other shelves for them… would be a shame, I only care about 3rd party g1 legends mostly now, especially to keep at work

Your reasoning is backwards: The toy makers go after KO's more readily because it's easier to pursue and win. Not because one is somehow more unethical than the other. Simply because one is more of a guaranteed win than the other, and will ultimately be less expensive to pursue and will set an easier example to establish and protect their trademark. The differentiation is money, effort, and expected results. Not some magical moral gradient of IP law.

You've misunderstood if you think I was claiming something other than that. I did not comport modern IP law with moral gradients. If anything, quite the opposite. Two separate topics. What I did attempt to lay out is how much less likely a 3P is to attract the legal ire of Hasbro than someone that is directly counterfeiting a Hasbro product. Namely, the 3P product is not directly pretending to be Hasbro via namesake, logo/branding, symbols, etc. There is only one corner of IP law that 3P is potentially transgressing, and that is the likeness factor you correctly highlighted as a potential legal risk for them. However that alone is unlikely to get them on Hasbro's radar unless they become significantly profitable and/or directly compete with a Hasbro product release of the same character in a similar scale/grade at the same time. i.e., unless they are foolish enough to kick the hornet's nest, they're unlikely to get stung. Do you not agree with that? I think you do. And we have both stated essentially the same conclusion: Hasbro goes after what they can, and 3P isn't something they can go after as easily, and 3P products are significantly different than a counterfeit product, which is why this court ruling regarding counterfeit Hasbro products has essentially no impact on 3Ps at this time.

There were two other, separate comments made. One comment was whether or not the corporate special-interest sponsored IP law of today is good or bad for the market, the consumer, and the advancement of the art via the creation of new products. It seemed you had a personal slant on the topic that was coloring your thinking strongly in one direction, so thanks for revealing it, i.e., that you are an artist of 40 years. Agreeing to disagree is perfectly fine, as it's a matter of personal preference and how one views the marketplace and what is best for society as a whole, and that is a timeless topic of debate.

The other comment, which was directed to Hicks_Royel, is around his use of the term "theft" to describe what 3Ps do. And on that one I stand by my previous statements regarding the ethical/moral meaning of the term. What 3P does, by and large, is not theft in any meaningful way. I don't care if IP law uses the term "theft", I'm not talking about IP law there. I was saying in a universal moral sense or standard for theft, it is not theft.

You (Hasbro) aren't losing anything on a ~30 year old character concept you clearly weren't doing anything with yourself at masterpiece scale. It you want to compete, get your company together and put out a product. And if that only happens after a 3P has tested the waters first and found demand, that's good for you, too. They took the risk for you, so their actions actually benefited you. You've lost nothing. You still have your character concept, and they didn't utilize any of the trademarks associated with the TF brand and your company. If there are already 3P products for a character that you're just now deciding to go to market with your own product, that's fine too. In a free market, you don't bully or sue those companies, you need to put out a superior product and/or rely on your official branding to drive demand. (It's one reason why competition is good for the consumer as you generally end up with a better product.) You gave up the initiative by not being first to market, but that was your choice, your opportunity cost.

In an ideal world, after a reasonable amount of time has passed since the artwork for a character was created and/or a product line was started, if you (Hasbro) haven't made substantial progress on delivering a physical action figure in a given scale/line based on that character, that should be fair game for others who specialize in that sort of product development to bring it to market. You chose to invest in other things and you've held back the market for a product long enough that a reasonable person would agree it's unnatural to prevent progress at this point. But of course it's not up to a reasonable person standard, it's up to the influence of corporate lobbyists.

In a world without our current overwrought IP law, I'd still be right there with you to accuse counterfeiters of lying/forgery and KOs of theft when they actually do steal something in order to create their knock-off of an existing product. Lying and theft were already wrong/against the law and would still be in a free market environment. When I look at how far IP law can go today, it seems terms are being abused for the sake of protecting monopolies and mega-corporations at the expense of actual artistic expression, the advancement of products, and the consumer's best interests. Fighting counterfeiting is a good thing. Fighting actual theft is a good thing. Trying to prevent someone from doing a thing better than it has been done before (or something that has not yet been done!) is not, particularly when it starts to stifle innovation or holds back the betterment of society and enjoyment thereof.